Petronas makes major gas discoveries in Kuang and Tukau Timur

Petroleum Nasional Bhd (Petronas) has made two major gas discoveries at the Kuang North and Tukau Timur fields, offshore Sarawak with estimated gas-in-place of about 4.4 trillion std cu ft (tscf) net hydrocarbon.

The national oil company said the Kuang North field, located in Block SK316, was drilled last month via two exploration wells Kuang North-1 and Kuang North-2.

The Kuang North-2 well, which was drilled to a depth of 3,223m, penetrated 636m of gas column.

“Preliminary assessments indicated that gas-in-place for the Kuang North field is about 2.3 tscf net hydrocarbon,” it said in a statement yesterday.

It said other notable recent discoveries in Block SK316 are the Kasawari and NC8 gas fields.

Most importantly, Petronas said, unlike other previous carbonate gas discoveries, the gas at Kuang North was found in the older carbonate section, opening up a new exploration play-type with substantial hydrocarbon potential in the older carbonate reservoirs offshore Sarawak.

It said Tukau Timur Deep-1 is the first completed high pressure high temperature (HPHT) well in Sarawak and also the deepest vertical well to be drilled by Petronas.

“The well was drilled to a depth of 4,830m and discovered 12 gas bearing reservoirs with total net gas sand of 183m.

“Preliminary assessments indicate the total gas-in-place for TukauTimur Field to be about 2.1 tscf.

“Subsequent work will commence to estimate the range of recoverable resource volumes. Tukau Timur Deep-1 is located in Block SK307 which is equally operated by Petronas Carigali with Sarawak Shell Bhd as partners.

“The well was spudded in May and completed in November,” it said.

An oil and gas analyst anticipated this development would give a boost to the country's reserves that had been stagnant over the past decade.

As of January, Petronas has a reserve of about 21.4 billion barrels of oil equivalents.

Another sector analyst said that the newly-discovered gas were in shallow waters and quite sizeable.

“But, the actual development might only come in three to four years' time,” he said, adding that anything above a trillion tscf net hydrocarbon was usually worth developing.

In illustrating the price of gas, Japan pays about US$18 per mmbtu (million metric British thermal units) for liquified natural gas while in the United States, its is hovering around US$3 per mmbtu.

In Malaysia, the gas price is currently about RM14.05 per mmbtu.

Analysts recently noted that the demand for energy would rise on higher usage by households and businesses.

The gas supply of 1,250 million std cu ft per day (mmscfd) is essential to the power sector and the volume of 1,250 mmscfd of gas is critical to maintain the equilibrium of the power sector with respect to generation capacity plant-up, system security/reliability and sustainable customer tariffs.